19 July 2011 early edition/transcript/Interlude
Interlude OLBERMANN: Joined again from Los Angeles by John Dean, and I just point out that the statement that Mister Murdoch read at the end there was in fact the statement he hoped to read at the beginning. You may have caught a couple of times when he updated the tense to the past tense. He began to say that he was interested in listening to their questions, when of course this is what he wanted to read in advance, and they simply put it in the past tense to put it there at the end. I did think, John, that after the incident with the shaving cream pie, and after the questions from Missus Mensch, which were a little- allowed the Murdochs to portray this as an endemic system for the entire- an endemic problem for the entire British tabloids- and then say, "well, no, but our standards are better, we don't- we're not going to blame them, even though everybody else does it, and we're going to let you blame them." There was a little truth escaping towards the end. Again, Missus Mensch asked whether or not, since everybody else had resigned from the leadership of the relevant parts of NewsCorp and News International, why- if Mister Murdoch would consider resigning. He said he would not. He said he blamed the others, he said they had betrayed the company, it's for them to pay. That just sort of escaped there at the last minute. DEAN: And also added that he was the best man to do the clean-up. OLBERMANN: Yep. DEAN: If you recall. Another thing in the statement he read, Keith, was quite interesting is he said that they had undertaken an internal investigation. You know, had that been read at the outset of the hearing, I suspect there would have been a number of questions about the nature of that internal investigation, because they pretty much brushed by that and knowledge that they might have had from an internal investigation during the query. I'm also surprised that the Committee didn't have a copy of that, which would be the norm in our system, where, before you give a statement, you have to submit it to the Committee so that they actually have a chance to not be blindsided by questions or issues that come up. So that was something that struck me in that brief statement. OLBERMANN: Yeah. Given that it was on the Internet within two minutes of the chairman saying that it would not be admitted as an opening statement, rather remarkable that they didn't have access to it, because everybody else sure did. I did want to ask, as we approach the testimony of Rebekah Brooks, something on this struck me as a whole. You suggest that if this had been read first, there would have been a whole different line of inquiry. I don't think anybody looking towards this event thought that the primary incident or event that would have been of concern to so many members of this Committee would have been the Gordon Taylor case in which the phone-hacking, the voicemail hacking, was allegedly done to the head of the soccer players union in England, and they settled for quite a large amount. Do you have any legal interpretation about why this case, which seemed to be so off-point relative to this huge scandal over the last seventeen days was of such fascination to the members of this Committee? DEAN: I think the answer is very simple. They think they see a pattern here where civil litigation is used to hush people who have been abused or had their privacy invaded or been hacked or what-have-you. There was a piece in the New York Times yesterday that was quite remarkable about a competitor corporation, where they had really used some heavy-handed hacking of computers here in the United States to get into their business. This was a company that puts floor advertisements in supermarkets, and they wanted to get into the business. And so after aggressively going after the company, including hacking their computer, the company suing them and having a case that they were going to get the tar beat out of them in the courtroom, they settled for a large sum then bought the company. We see the same thing in the U.K., where they have had very large settlements. There have been lots of settlements along the way with some of the other people. For example, the Jude Law- which we talked about last night, the case- his girlfriend settled for $165,000 for a hacking case. So there's a pattern in these hacking cases, and they thought, since James had actually approved this settlement, that he might have seen the transcript, he might have seen- which he says he didn't- he might have had some information, which he says he didn't- he said he did it basically on the advice of counsel who told him that they might lose the case, and therefore this was a reasonable settlement. It's actually a very clever way to pay hush-money, is what it might be. OLBERMANN: Yeah, especially with those considerations of confidentiality, which, in most cases like that, you're not even allowed to acknowledge that there is either an agreement or a confidentiality clause in an agreement. Which- DEAN: And James could have waived it right there at that hearing- OLBERMANN: And he refused. Yes. DEAN: Saying, "we have nothing to hide in that agreement," and didn't do it. OLBERMANN: Right. He was offered the opportunity at the end by Tom Watson. Let's, as, again- as we await Rebekah Brooks's testimony, I want to play one- actually, two clips of Murdoch from early in the day, from early in his testimony. One, which I think addresses whether or not he came off good in this, to put it very bluntly and simply. He was asked about whether or not the events of the last couple of weeks had led him to perhaps reconsider the investigative style used by some of his newspapers. VIDEO COFFEY: Will this make you think again about how you approach your headlines and targets in future? That could be people from Hillsborough 96 to celebrities to others. Will you think again about what your headlines will say in future? RUPERT: I think all our editors certainly will. I am not aware of any transgressions. It is a matter of taste. It is a very difficult issue. We have in this country a wonderful variety of voices and they are naturally very competitive. I am sure there are headlines that occasionally give offence, but it is not intentional. [COUNTDOWN STUDIO] OLBERMANN: So the suggestion there- did that help him at all, that rather than saying, "well, yes," even if he had no intention of toning it down, would it have been- would you have advised him for any reason to say, just, "yes, we're going to tone it down," just for the sake of saying that? DEAN: You might have, just for the sake of saying it, yes. It's very clear he- the pause there was very loaded and he's clearly mulling something, and saying, "well, you know, I don't think I've done anything wrong. This is too competitive a business. We may get worse rather- before we get better." I just thought that was- there's no remorse whatsoever within this organization. There's none within his DNA. His people at Fox News, you know, are watching this intently, and they're taking their cues as to how they're going to proceed, and it's just going to fullboard. In fact, I suspect the attacks are going to increase at places like the Wall Street Journal and Fox News to defend the boss now. OLBERMANN: Well you can be sure what the lead story throughout the afternoon and the evening will be on Fox News, which will be simply, "Murdoch threatened and attacked at U.K. hearing." DEAN: Yes. OLBERMANN: It was that- huge, shaving-cream damage was done to the man. There's another clip here that also addresses this sort of tonal quality here. "Non, je ne regrette rien," to really misplace Édith Piaf. The question was asked about what he knew about this, and his response was so dismissive, we've sort of called this the one-percent solution. Here's- this was early on in the testimony this morning. VIDEO WATSON: I think that she amended it seven or eight years afterwards. RUPERT: Oh, I'm sorry. WATSON: Did you or anyone else at your organisation investigate this at the time? RUPERT: No. WATSON: Can you explain why? MURDOCH: I didn't know of it, I'm sorry. Allow me to say something? This is not an excuse. Maybe it is an explanation of my laxity. The News of the World is less than 1% of our company. I employ 53,000 people around the world who are proud and great and ethical and distinguished people—professionals in their line. Perhaps I am spread watching and appointing people whom I trust to run those divisions. [COUNTDOWN STUDIO] OLBERMANN: However, John, he later said all crises- anything at the level of crisis goes to him. He's hands-on. He- even if it's once a week, he's in touch with the editors of his major newspapers, even just to find out how many pages of additional football coverage they're putting in the Sunday paper. There did seem to be a certain, not just an arrogance in these answers, but a multidirectional one, very much able to answer yes and no to the same kind of question with equal confidence that he was right and everybody else was wrong. DEAN: And he'd forgotten what he'd had in his opening statement. OLBERMANN: Yeah. DEAN: For example, he, there had said there had been an internal investigation, and here he said, "you know, I was aware of nothing." He also changed the employee ratio. OLBERMANN: Yes, he did DEAN: From 52,000 to 53,000 between the opening statement that he didn't give and the answer that he did give. So he was fast and loose with the facts as they fit his mood in the moment. OLBERMANN: Were you surprised, given the reputation- somebody had assessed that, read an assessment early this morning about the quality of the questioners, some of whom were pretty diligent. I thought there were- may not have- necessarily been used some of these questions to get at the truth. I thought Missus Mensch at the end then sort of set him up to deny that his paper was as bad as everybody else's, "but even if it was, that wouldn't possibly be enough of an excuse to behave this way, and we're all going to fix it." But Mister Watson seemed to be a rather able questioner. Nevertheless, there didn't seem to be- he didn't get hit by a lot of pies other than the one that we actually saw, did he? DEAN: No, he did not. They were fairly deferential. By way of comparison, the British Home Affairs Committee, which has been holding – COUGHS excuse me – investigations of the police, have been much tougher on the police force. I mean, just- OLBERMANN: I have to interrupt you again, John. DEAN: Sure. TO LIVE FEED OLBERMANN: Rebekah Brooks, the ousted executive from News International has arrived to take care- take part in the second part of the day's hearings at the Portcullis House. The Culture, Media, and Sport Committee of the British Parliament House of Commons about to resume. Here is the Chairman, Mister Whittingdale.